


The Man Who Came In From The Cold

by KaworubytheSea



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Humor, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:53:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4934914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaworubytheSea/pseuds/KaworubytheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivan Braginski gets a phone call from a stranger who was once a lover, and the world stops for them. For a moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Came In From The Cold

It is a cold autumn day in the Kremlin, and the clocks strike thirteen.

Ivan is seated at the head of another conference meeting. He doesn’t bother to pay attention anymore. A few spare phrases get through, but nothing he hasn’t heard already: the distribution of arms –the tide of migrants – strategic deception – selective targeting – against national interests - a decisive blow. The ministers and courtiers all give him ostentatious shows of respect – saluting, clicking their heels, and bowing – but they never let him do anything, just order him around and give him empty praises. The Soul of the Nation! The Embodiment of the Russian People! Ivan’s gaze wanders up to the gold leaf decorating the ceiling. A gilded cage.

“Sir,” a military adjutant interrupts his sour meditation, “There’s a phone call for you, domestic. It’s Belarus.”

Well, that’s some comfort. With all his old friends scattered to the wind (even Cuba is drifting away now), at least he had Natalya to talk to, as single-minded as she was. Even though he always acted cold, he felt somewhere that he valued that loyalty.

He steps into another room, with two guards listening in at the door, and he picks up the black telephone receiver.

“ _Da._ ”

“ _Privet_ , Ivan! It’s Alfred.”

“ _Oh…Allo, Nastasya….My mozhem pogovorit' zdes'…da, my odni._ ” He gives a cheeky glance and a wink to the officers, who smile and step out of the room. No need to intrude on romance. 

“Mozza-what? Slow down! I’ve used up all the Russian I know.”

Ivan waits until his guards shut the heavy oak doors behind them and he starts again, softer, this time in his heavily-accented English.

“Where are you?”

“Moscow! I can see your offices from here.”

“Why are you here?” 

“Vanechka ,” Alfred says, (how long has it last been since someone called him that?) “I’m just here to see you.” 

“Well.” Ivan crosses his legs and places the receiver on his lap. “If you wanted to have a nice conversation I could have arranged dinner for the four of us. Us and the bosses.”

“Really? You’d do that?”

“No. I’m not that kind of man, Alfred.”

“Oh, no, no. Course not. I just… you know, enjoy our time together. If you were willing to sneak out, wander outside the usual etiquette, I could have dinner brought to the room.  
The waitress can keep an eye on us.”

“Room service? You got a hotel room?” 

“Yeah, I got a room at the… Baltchug Kempinski. Really ritzy place, I’m impressed. Ask for me in the lobby. It’s very discreet, they know what to do.”

“And I’m just going to do what you say?”

“I called the Kremlin about five times today and I kept hanging up after they gave it to Vova . I’m only here to talk to you. Only conversation, I promise.”

He twists the cord around his black-gloved finger. “Fine. I can get away for one night. But lower your expectations.”

“Even less than conversation? You’re killing me.”

“Dobroy nochi. ”

* * *

The door to the bedroom slams open, and the pair fall right onto the cotton sheets, tasting each other, their hands grasping and exploring each other.

Ivan breaks the kiss. “You’re a fucking liar. No dinner, no conversation.”

Alfred shifts his hand, gently traces lines across Ivan’s bulge with the tips of his fingers. “Really? Don’t be so coy. You’re already on the bed.”

They laugh. God, how long has it been since that happened?

“Come on. Get over here and fuck me, Ivan.”

Alfred finally takes off his long coat and dress shirt, almost popping the buttons off in his haste, and Ivan drapes his clothes over a chair. Alfred fishes a condom wrapper out of his wallet and tears it open with his teeth. ‘God,’ thought Ivan, ‘when did he get all that fucking energy?’

Alfred pulls Ivan’s pants and boxers off his legs, and his dick bounces up. He is lying flat on the bed, and Alfred crawls up between his legs. Alfred looks up to him, with expressive, wanting, eyes. He bobs his mouth around the head. His tongue darts around the tip, between the head and the inside of the foreskin, and Ivan feels little darts of electricity. His head leans back and his mouth gapes open.

“Oh… oh yes, Alfred.”

At this, Alfred goes forward, bracing himself against Ivan’s thighs. He bobs his head further, faster, and he takes the whole thing in his mouth at once, it goes into his throat with a soft thud and a moan, which Ivan feels. He pulls it out after a few minutes of steady pumping; a thin string of saliva hangs between his mouth and the head. His glasses have almost slipped off the end of his nose from the speed. Ivan has to chuckle at the scene. 

“Alfred, please take your glasses off.”

His breathing is heavy and rapid. “No. I want to look at you.”

Alfred gets up and kneels on the bed, straddling Ivan’s legs. He spreads his thighs and is about to lower himself onto Ivan, feel him inside. Ivan watches him, takes him in with his gaze, looks him over from top to bottom, the soft bouncing of his chest, the tensing of his abs. He feels the soft velvety cushion of Alfred’s ass as he lowers him onto his prick, to take him, take all of him.

Alfred throws his head back, his eyes wide open, his mouth open, and Ivan sees the trembling of his Adam’s apple as he moans. 

“Fuck me harder, Ivan. Fuck me!”

Their moans overlap and the bed trembles, and the pair thrust faster upon each other. “Oh God, Oh God…” Ivan seizes Alfred’s arms, and they’re almost wrestling now, each struggling against the other. 

Ivan comes, his hair splayed out on the pillow and his face burning, his breath coming out in a long, drawn-out moan, his back arching, his hand squeezing Alfred’s thigh. Alfred comes soon after, his seed dappled all over Ivan’s chest and the cracks of his abs. A drop lands on Ivan’s chin and he rubs it off with his finger and licks it, still gasping. Alfred collapses on top of Ivan, and the two of them are panting together, with Ivan staring, in warm unthinking ecstasy, at the ceiling. Alfred lets out a rumbling, satisfied purr.

* * *

Alfred is smoking some cheap cigarettes on the balcony with a white bath robe on, and Ivan lies in bed, his hands folded over his chest.

“Alfik .”

“Yes, Vanechka.”

“Why are we doing this?”

“The sex? Because I fucking love it and you do too. I wish you could see your own O-face.”

“No, no.” He waves his hand in a circle, and Alfred sees the veins and calluses from a life of hard labor. “All this.”

Ivan sighs again. “How stupid are we? To sit here and fuck like animals and pretend nothing is wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting old now, Alfik, I’m weak. Even if I don’t admit it. It costs 4,000 rubles to buy a piece of cheese because of your boss’ sanctions, I might lose Irina forever and now I have to deal with Syria. I can’t deal with everybody hounding at me at the same time.” He draws out a long sigh. “I think you, Ludwig and his buddies, and Wang all smell blood. One of these days you’ll knife me.” He slams hand into fist.

Alfred flicks the cigarette butt off the balcony and turns around.

“OK. I’m going to order some beer and caviar from room service and we’ll talk about it.”

“No, Alfred. We talk about this now. You always look so happy and look like nothing’s wrong. It’s like we’re living in different worlds now.”

Alfred’s smile fades off his face, and he looks directly at Ivan, almost challenging him.

“You really think I don’t have any problems?”

“Oh, spare me, Alfred. You look like a model, you’re still rich, even after 2008 . You’re still powerful. Everybody still likes you, or at least they have to lick your boots. I’m always trying to catch up to you. What is it that you possibly want?”

“I think we both know that, Ivan.”

Ivan raises an eyebrow.

“More.”

Ivan crosses his arms. “More.”

“You know how it is. You’re just now starting to feel that again. It’s ambition. We don’t want some of it, we want everything, everywhere. You don’t ever accept losing what you have, being less than what you ever were, and that’s what you’re doing now. Even if you’re trying to act coy about it.”

“How short-sighted of you. Are you really just being greedy here?”

“I think we both know what it’s like to be poor and desperate, and none of us ever wants to go there again, and that’s what we want.”

“You know what it’s like to feel pain?”

“Part of me does.”

Alfred lights up a second cigarette, and he offers a third to Ivan, who accepts.

“There is something which always influences our thinking, though.”

Ivan says nothing, takes a few puffs of the cigarette. It tastes like shit.

“Empire. Universal dominion. We both want to be like Old Rome, even if we don’t say it as much.”

Ivan sits up in bed.

“Because, as much as we both love the Italians, I think we know they’re nothing like their old man. Wang tells us that much.”

Ivan smirks, the side of his mouth twisting into a smile. “No. No they are not. But you still want to expand your influence over the earth? Then what? What happens if there is nothing left on earth?”

Alfred shrugs. “The moon. Mars. Other planets still have our flags on them, and I’m sure you still want that too, somewhere.”

“You really think of it like that? You get more and more things and this is supposed to make you feel something?”

“I have a lot of things. Seems to work out well for me.”

“And do you treat people like this, too?”

“You don’t? Please.”

“But what happens when you tire of me, Alfred? When I’m no longer a worthy prize for you to take as you wish?”

“The day that happens, the world itself is probably going to end and we’ll be in the ground.”

“And which one of us will have started it?”

“Would it matter?”

“And who would be left to shame us into keeping our heads cool? We know what happened last time, 1962- ”

“Maybe we’d be smart enough to take care of each other. We at least communicate now. I’d rather think we’re not that stupid.”

“Do any of your bosses still have some humanity left in them? Are they rational enough to avoid burning us all alive?”

Alfred takes a seat on the squashy armchair and crosses his legs, and exhales smoke through his nose. “The humans are irrational, and short-lived, but they at least have kept everyone alive so far. And who would you think be enough to save us?”

“A pure and upright man. There are none like him on this earth. ”

Alfred rubs his head in his hands.

“Christ, this isn’t where I had imagined this conversation going.”

“Don’t blaspheme.”

“Ivan, you blasphemed inside me already tonight.”

Ivan looks at him with a look of pure horror, but they both double over in laughter. Alfred nearly drops his cigarette and Ivan’s chest hurts from the laughter. He coughs, a weak gasping cough. Are his lungs going out? Better not think of that.

Alfred stands up and walks to the radio. “Let’s put on some music, Ivan. You always like that.”

No answer.  
He turns the knob until he hears an old waltz. Alfred smiles, turns over to Ivan, and stretches out his hand to dance. Ivan gets up, still naked, and the two men dance, and their fingers wrap around each others’, and Alfred presses his head against Ivan’s warm chest. And the world waits until the dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> Vanechka and Alfik are Russian pet names for Ivan and Alfred, respectively. 'Vova' is a nickname for Vladimir Putin.
> 
> The Baltchug Kempinski is a real hotel in Moscow near the Kremlin, where the average room costs 40,000 Rubles a night, or at least $600 at current exchange rates.
> 
> Ivan's quote from the end is a paraphrase from the Book of Job, 1:8.
> 
> My Russian is pitiful, so I had to rely on Google translate. The phrases should mean (I hope):  
> Privet = Hello  
> Oh…Allo, Nastasya….My mozhem pogovorit' zdes'…da, my odni. = Hello Nastasya, we can talk now…yes, we are alone.  
> Dobroy nochi = Good night.


End file.
